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I think this is the most asymmetric upside bet in the market now. Position yourself smartly and you can make 10-1000x with relative ease. How? Even if politicians try to bury the fraud, the bond market can’t ignore it. Their math will show that even if the fraud is only 10% of total state and municipal budgets, it’s already way too much and should go to paying back debt holders. Right now spreads don’t reflect this and are too tight - ie look at California Credit Default Swaps - it doesn’t reflect any fraud, budget shortfalls or the billionaire exodus. There is little chance these spreads don’t move as the bond market comes back to work and processes the events of the last few days. Now, if instead of 10% fraud, they believe that fraud is 20-30% of all tax dollars, the cost of borrowing will escalate sharply until federal, state and local governments are forced to act. This is when the CDS trade becomes the most asymmetric profit opportunity of our lifetime. Buy the CDS -> wait for politicians to try and bury it -> ie in California -> see the bond market increase borrowing costs -> see the CDS blow out -> asymmetric bet pays off. The takeaway here is that the bond market lives in an alternative and adjacent universe from the politicians and media. The latter group can try to bury an issue but when the former group is asked to fund it, a reckoning happens and the former group always wins.